Chasing You
by Taste.of.life
Summary: "You hesitated." She says, finally looking at him. There's a hickey on his neck, only thumbprint in size but it's clearly there and she can't help the smile from looking at it. But she's still frustrated and more than a little embarrassed and she wants to finally understand what they're doing. "I've never slept with anyone before."
1. June 2014

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

A/N: I wrote this in about thirty minutes so please excuse any small errors.

* * *

June, 2014

She's asleep in his bed.

He hasn't been able to close his eyes for the last three hours and exhaustion feels heavy in his mind, but still he can't close them.

He's never slept in the same bed as somebody before.

Her hair is a twisting of curls and fans about the pillow, _his_ pillow. She has a crease between her brows and her lips are curled at the corners and he can't close his eyes.

The red glare from the digital alarm clock on the bedside table reads 3:14 and without thought he starts rattling the number of pi in his mind

3.141592653689793-

Her breathing hitches for a moment and she squirms a little closer to his body.

23846264338

Her eyes slowly open and she blinks to clear the darkness in her vision.

His own eyes have adjusted hours ago and he holds his breath as she squints in the dark to look at him.

"Spencer? Are you still awake?"

He nods but she can't see him yet so he clears his throat and tries to speak.

"Y-yes." His throat feels dry and his hands feel warm and there's something in his stomach that feels like a wild animal trying to claw its way to his chest.

"Are you okay?" She asks, the sleepy tone of her voice turning her words into whispers.

"Y-yes."

She pushes herself up with one hand and leans over him to turn on the lamp by the bed. He catches a face full of bare skin and swallows thickly.

The light is blinding and disorients him for several moments. When his vision clears finally he can see her leaning against the bed-frame, the dark blue sheets tucked under her arms. She's frowning, eyebrows slanted down and biting the inside of her left cheek. She's worried and nervous and if he understands the look in her eyes, a little sad.

"Do you want me to go?" She asks, still in the whispering voice used at night.

Surprise erases his anxiety and he can feel his eyebrows rise unconsciously. In all his musing and thoughts not once had that flittered into his mind. It takes him a moment to think of what to say.

 _No, he doesn't want her to leave. Yes, he wants her to leave._

"Okay, I get it. We moved too fast." She released the sheet and swings her legs out of bed. The curve of her naked back sends a hot blush to his cheeks and his palms feel sweaty and there's something else stirring that he doesn't want to think about because right now he needs to keep his head.

She grabs her clothes in a couple of handfuls and haphazardly starts putting them on. She's just finished clasping her bra when he finally formulates the words to talk.

"No- no. I, uh, I don't want you to leave." He stumbles out, pushing his hands through his hair, trying his best not get up. He's just as naked as she was moments ago and even though she'd already seen everything, _touched_ everything, he can't find it within himself to be that bare right now.

"Don't worry, Spencer. I get it, I do. Really." She looks everywhere but at him as she shimmies into her jeans and buttons them up. She can only find one shoe and a frustrated sigh leaves her mouth.

"It's in the kitchen." He tells her, leaning over the bed to grab his pair of boxers. They're the ones with Einstein's face on them, a joke present from Morgan last Christmas that turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. He cringes when he realizes that his first sexual experience was fulfilled while wearing underwear with the face of one of the greatest theoretical physicist on them.

She pushes her way out of the bedroom and he takes the moment to pull on the accursed boxers and almost trips over the rest of the clothes he was wearing only five hours earlier.

She finds the shoe, next to Spencer's tie, forgotten on the floor in the heat of earlier. She pulls on the shoe and wants to cry.

"Wait, wait, don't go, please." He rushes out, hair sticking up and breathing heavy and face frantic.

"Why?" Her face feels tight, like she's holding back tears of frustration and something hot, like shame, has crawled up her back and hangs around her neck.

"Because I don't want you to, that's why." As far as arguments go it isn't his best, but it could have been worse.

"You hesitated." She says, finally looking at him. There's a hickey on his neck, only thumbprint in size but it's clearly there and she can't help the smile from looking at it. But she's still frustrated and more than a little embarrassed and she wants to finally understand what they're doing.

"I've never slept with anyone before." He tells her, eyes low and voice strained and hands shaking.

"I know, you told me before."

The first time she kissed him she could feel his pulse throbbing in his throat and taste the hesitation in his mouth. She'd known from that moment on that she needed to be careful with him. She knew that to him touching wasn't merely touching, but a foreign notion of intimacy that neither had much experience with.

He'd told her of his inexperience the first time she loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. He told her while looking at his hands, palms fisted tightly with the material of her dress. She just smiled and continued with unbuttoning his shirt, kissing along his neck and promising not to go to far.

For months they'd danced around it, quick touches and teasing fingers and last night it had been simply too much.

She initiated it, like she does every time.

And he had been so scared, so caught-up in the fear of doing something wrong he'd broken her wine glass and stained his shirt and hit his head against the counter and a number of other small things that had her laughing but mostly had her undoing more buttons and taking off more clothes.

And now she regretted moving too fast with him.

"No- I've never been asleep with someone before- well I guess more accurately is that I've never shared the same bed while asleep before."

"I understand, that makes sense," she mutters and starts to head to the door, "I'll let you get your sleep."

"No- that's not what I was saying. Will you just stop, please." He calls out, anger creeping its way into his voice.

"What do you want from me, Spencer?" The question is so sudden that he's taken off-guard and falters. So he says the first collection of words in his mind.

"I want you to stay, I'm sorry I hesitated before, I apologize for that."

Now he's even more nervous and terrified she'll leave and terrified she still won't and that fear is crippling and confusing and he's not used to not knowing.

"Why do you want me to stay?" Her eyes are pleading and her lips are quivered and there's a tension in her body that he's never seen before. There's something deeper to the question he can't understand and that sends alarms into every part of his body.

He doesn't even understand why he wants her to stay...because he likes her in a way he still can't fully comprehend. Because when he sees her, he smiles, and when she leaves the room he feels a little lost. Because one look from her and he can't swallow properly, or he loses track of the time and he _never_ loses track of time.

Because if he can't figure out what to say to convince her to stay he's certain that she'll never come back and that's not something he's willing to risk. That would never be something he's willing to risk.

He opens his mouth to speak but nothing but air comes out. So she shakes her head and swallows her pride and opens the door.

"I don't know what to say!" There's such fear in his voice, so much confusion, a little part of her heart cries and she feels like a monster.

"Tell me how you feel about me," she rounds on him, leaving the door still open. Her voice is thin and sad and angry. "Tell me what we are- and don't give me some answer about how we're humans or we're a man and a woman. Tell me what we are to each other Spencer. Tell me what I am to you."

But he doesn't know how to answer that question because he doesn't _know_.

"I- you- it's like… it's like.. and you are…."

"See… you don't even know," she's still fighting the tears, but she's losing and the last thing she wants is to be the girl that cries in front of a boy that will never feel for her what she feels for him. So it's with anger she continues.

"But I do know, Spencer… I know how I feel about you, and I love you. I started loving you the minute you read every piece of material in my apartment just to know the types of books I liked, and I started loving you when I noticed you always keep a bottle wine in your apartment when you never drink, and I know it's for me, and when you called me every time you got home so I would know you were safe. God, when you went to church with me for Easter and didn't once mention how fundamentally flawed the institution of religion is. I started loving you when I found your stupid note-cards of tv references... shows that I know you would never watch. I started loving you a very long time ago and if you can't say the same… I can't do this, not anymore."

She's breathing heavy and a few tears have escaped and her chest hurts, hurts like someone's carved into her heart and crushed it, because there's no emotion in his face, just blankness.

She nods to herself, refusing to cry even more and waits just ten more seconds, ten more seconds to see if he'll do anything.

"Okay, I get it. Goodbye, Spencer."

The words act as adrenaline on his system and suddenly he's moving across the room, covering the entire space in just a few strides. He pushes himself between her and the door, closing it effectively with one hand. He's never been so bold, not even while he had her naked in his bed, and he doesn't have the time to be too startled with his action.

"You don't get it." He tells her, taking in the surprise, the hope, and the anger ever present in her eyes.

"I can't express how I feel about you because it doesn't make any sense. Not emotionally or physically or mentally and certainly not mathematically because there's no way to categorize this or count this in measurements and I have this… this feeling in me that I can't explain but it eats at me every day."

He's grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned down to really look into her eyes. He wants her to understand, really understand what he's saying and he's afraid she won't.

"You are the first time I learned my first algorithm in third grade and when I earned my first PhD and when I was shot, you are those feelings. You make me scared, scared that you'll leave and scared that you'll stay. I don't know how those two emotions can possibly exist at the same time but they do, and they result from you. You are the best moments that I can think of. You make me want to be normal because I think you deserve someone who doesn't miss the kinds of things that I miss and I'm scared you'll wake up one day and leave because I wasn't enough, because I'm not enough."

He takes a moment to breathe, his chest heaving.

"How could you possibly get that?"

His words are like a hard slap to her face.

She wants to hit him, to yell at him for being so absurd, for thinking so little of himself and for so little of her, but she can't keep a smile from creeping onto her face because he loves her. He didn't say it and she knows he doesn't realize it yet, but he does and that's enough for her.

So instead of fighting more or crying or forcing him to face something he isn't ready to face she keeps her face as neutral as possible, the smile still tugging.

"Okay, I'll stay."

Shock opens his mouth and widens his eyes and makes him drop his hands from her shoulders.

"You'll…stay?"

She turns away from him and begins her walk back into his bedroom, dropping her bag onto the couch and kicking off her shoes as she goes. It takes him another moment to really process what she's doing and by the time he follows her into the room he can see her jeans on the floor and her naked shoulders above the sheets.

"I guess you're going to have to deal with two firsts tonight."

She laughs at his expression and at his red stained cheeks.

He gets into bed cautiously, turning off the lamp and letting the darkness swallow them.

This time it's easier to relax into the bed, and he's not startled when he feels the warm heat of her body next to his, or when she curls into him and intertwines their hands.

This time it's the pounding of his heart he feels as she drifts her way into sleep so he closes his eyes and replays everything about that night and about what she said.

" _I love you"_

And somewhere between the lull of her breathing and the replaying of her words he falls asleep.


	2. September and May

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

Just something small

* * *

September

2014.

"I'm in love with you."

He tells her so softly she almost can't hear him.

It's nighttime, which has slowly become her most favorite time in a day. The night is when she has him. However late, however long it takes, he finds his way back to her.

She has him in brief moments during the day, he's always half distracted by work or by reading or by just thinking. But at night he is fully hers.

His body curled around hers, his breathing following the pattern of her own.

He plays with the strands of her hair or traces the lines of her body or simply laces his fingers through her own.

Now he's running his thumb along her cheek, holding her with his eyes. She's incapable of moving away from this man who only months ago could not even meet her gaze. She looks for him in his face, for the man-boy that blushed at her unbuttoned blouse and fidgeted his way out of holding her hand for the first three weeks of dating. She looks for him, the one that trips over his own untied shoe laces and accidentally breaks everything remotely electronic that comes within a five feet radius of him.

She sees faint traces in the nervous blush settling high on his cheeks, in the sticky out points of his ears and in just the hint of doubt behind his eyes. She sees him in so many ways, especially in the dark.

She's smiling before she realizes it, her face full of heat and she can't possibly remember a time of being so happy.

"I wanted you to know."

His voice is calm and assured and it pulls something in her, grabs at it and teases it to the surface. It's something she can't explain but it feels good and horrible at the same time and it isn't until his long fingers are wiping away tears that she realizes she's crying and smiling and small sobs are shaking her body.

"Are you alright?" He asks, dark brows pulled down deep. She wants to kiss away the sudden worry creasing at his mouth but all she can do is nod.

"I didn't say anything wrong, did I?" He sits up in the bed and pulls her along with him.

She shakes her head rapidly and climbs into his lap, legs on either side of his hips and long arms wrapped around his neck. He rests a hand at her hip and the other goes to cup her face again.

"What's wrong?"

She kisses away the worry at his mouth and the tears dry away.

"Nothing," she tells him, "Nothing could ever possibly be wrong now."

* * *

May

2015.

"Come with me."

It breaks the silence.

For the first time she looks at him, holds steady with his gaze. He's a mess.

Purple smudges bruise his eyes and his face is pale and hollow. He looks like he hasn't slept in days, hasn't been able to rest in weeks.

His gaze is like brick and stone and everything behind it is contained in that layered fence. She can't read him, not like this. He is a statue of marble, unflinching.

"Come with me." Her voice cracks and there's a tremor in her hands. She feels her own barriers breaking and knows he sees it in her face. He sees the fear and conflict, the maddening desperation and the mounting panic.

This is it.

Everything is being torn back, ripped away.

This is the moment.

"Please."

There's a tick in his jaw and his nostrils flare.

She's never seen him so angry, so enraged. He's a dry storm crackling with thunder, waiting to erupt.

The silence settles back down, a thick cloud that weighs her to the floor, presses her deeper into the chair. Her hands reach up to her face and she covers her mouth.

She will not cry. Not again. Not now.

She struggles for a few minutes to find the strength to leave, to rise from the chair and to walk across the room and to leave. It's deep within her but she finds it and like a life preservation dragging her to safety she lets it save her from downing. Drowning in this room and drowning in this silence.

The chair wails as it scratches against the wood floor and she pushes herself up on shaky legs.

She can no longer stand the sight of his eyes and turns away.

Her bags are already packed by the door, waiting like sentries.

He doesn't get up to stop her, not this time.

Just watches as she grabs her coat, and hoists one bag over her shoulder and picks up the other one.

She drops the little bronze key onto the table by the door.

His fingers close into fists.

The door shuts with a small click behind her, letting him know it closed.

There's a moment of wild fear and pain but it burns away beneath the fire of rage and then he isn't sitting any more.

He's raging.

The table is turned over and the chair breaks against the wall, falling in pieces of wood and shards of splinters. The pictures on the wall are torn down and broken glass forms a mosaic on the floor. The walls are a cold cage for his burning fire and he breathes like he's dying for air in a world without oxygen.

He settles suddenly, his broken life at the ground beside him.


	3. August 2008

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

A/N: I'm trying something new here, hope people enjoy.

* * *

August.

2008

Unconsciously he traces the three pronged triangle on the chip. In small print the word 'recovery' is engraved along the bottom rim of the triangle. It's such a small little chip, just a little larger than a quarter, but it's suppose to represent so much.

He hasn't used Dilaudid in months but it still feels false to carry the chip.

Recovery means healing, moving on from the trauma of the past and stitching back the tattered pieces of his life.

He doesn't know exactly what it is he's doing, but he knows he isn't healing.

How can anyone recover from the trauma of being kidnapped, being tortured and forced into an addiction with opioids.

So he'll carry the chip and he'll sit in the meetings and he'll fight the desire, the absolute wanting of another hit, but he won't say he's in recovery.

He's kept his meetings hidden so far, at least as much as anything can be hidden from people whose lives revolve around uncovering secrets. If anyone knows, they haven't said, and that's how he'd prefer it.

There's a shift in the air and he knows it's Penelope because of the sound of her clunky heels and jingling necklaces and the frantic energy coming at him in waves.

He slips the chip back into pocket before she enters his line of sight in a flurry of yellow and pink and orange. A sparkling bird is pinned into her hair and little tree house earrings dangle from her ears.

"A little birdy told me you met someone."

She settles onto his desk, pushing a case file out of the way. Her fingers fold over lap and this is a woman who cannot be moved.

"Spencer Reid, I have gone through great lengths to get this information and I know my sources, _very_ reliable sources. I also know that if you don't give me anything, even a small detail, I will explode. Yes, you heard that right. I will literally combust- no, don't try to get literal with me about how that actually isn't possible because I assure you, Mr. Doctor Genius, it is very real and I'm in danger of doing it now, so spill."

Red splotches have emerged on her cheeks and her eyebrows are high on her forehead, the little bird bobbing in her hair.

There's so many things he could say to this, but there's really nothing he wants to say and he's tired. Tired of going to meetings and fighting cravings and pretending that he knows how to deal with any of this and the last, the very last thing, he wants to do is explain how wrong she is, wrong about spontaneous combustion but even more wrong about him meeting anyone.

"Penelope-"

She holds a finger up to his lips.

It's a testament to his own self control that he doesn't immediately flinch away. He's never been one for personal contact and even for Penelope this is a little too much. He easily shifts his body back and away from her long finger with orange acrylics. She looks a little resigned, like she had expected that. He hates disappointing her but he can't help himself.

"Unless your sentence begins with 'Yes, I met someone', I'm going to be very mad."

He taps his fingers along the desk and his foot begins to tap in the same rhythm.

"I'm sorry, Penelope, but it isn't true."

She squints at him behind her bedazzled spectacles and leans even closer to him.

He swallows and tries to relax. They've been friends for years, she's the only one who constantly shares his enthusiasm for old television shows and horribly produced scary movies. She never sends him away or interrupts him when he's babbling, his thoughts coming to fast for him and his mouth working overtime to get the words out. She never makes him feel inept or awkward or bad about himself and he can see the hurt in her eyes every time he flinches when they're too close.

He's tried to explain how it isn't her, that it's everyone but mostly it's him.

"Spencer..."

"W-Who would I even meet?" He asks her. "Who would even like someone like me? I'm-well, you know."

She wonders if he's always been riddled with self-doubt, having grown up so much smarter than everyone and always feeling left out.

She can picture little Spencer Reid, doing complex equations at recess and correcting his teachers, but she can't picture him with many friends and her heart breaks for the little boy with the big brain and the sad childhood. She wants to swoop him up in a hug and make him something warm to drink and tell him that he is incredibly loved, but she can't do anything of those things without making him stammer out and excuse and watching him flee, so she just resists the urge to wrap him into his arms.

"Oh- Oh Spencer, how could you say something like that?"

He doesn't answer her, but he doesn't look at her and she knows that he can say something like that because no one has ever told him differently.

"You have a beautiful mind, Spencer, but you have an even more beautiful soul and if you can't see that... well I guess it'll just be my personal mission in life to show you." She smiles at him but she feels like crying because he looks so helpless and uncomfortable.

"I-no, please don't do that. I-, it's not like... Well, I just, you really don't have to." He's flustered.

His own face has turned a cherry crimson and he feels the heat trailing down his neck.

"What's going on over here?" Morgan's voice is like a knife to the moment and the bird on Penelope's head almost topples off as she swings around to look for him.

He's cocking a brow and leaning against Rossi's desk and studying them like he studies every situation he can't quite explain.

"Nothing you can't join in on, handsome." Penelope quips.

She looks back to Spencer and gives him a small smile.

"We're not done with this." She tells him before pushing off his desk and walking towards the exit.

"If you fine gentleman will excuse me, I think I've got a lot of work to do."

"Do you need any help with that, Baby Girl?" Derek grins.

"oh, you know that I do."

She has a bit of a bounce to her step as she climbs the stairs and leaves them in the bull pin. When she's finally turned the corner and disappeared from view, Derek turns his attention back to him.

"What's going on, kid?" He asks.

He feels relief because while Derek may care, he doesn't push and a simple 'nothing' will make him drop the conversation, at least for now.

"Nothing."

And just like that he nods and sits down at his desk, pulling out his head phones and tucking himself into a long night of filling out papers and looking over psych evaluations and trying to wrap his brain around how people can be so cruel and evil.

They work like that for several hours, sometimes being disturbed by the casual passing over others, but mostly working in silence.

When Spencer leaves he has one hand holding onto his bag and the other in his pocket, clutched around the little chip with the word 'recovery' etched onto it, hoping that one day he might actually be able to recover.


	4. February 2015

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

A/N: Story does not follow chronological order.

* * *

February

2015

Her arms are elbow deep in the dishwater, blue-white bubbles foaming about the sink and stray pieces of hair stuck to the back of her neck, falling from her tangled bun with the rocking motion of her bobbing head.

She's humming and singing and dancing to herself while she washes the dishes and he's so caught up in the sight of her he can't remember why he even walked into the kitchen in the first place.

He's content to watch from the doorway as she finishes washing her favorite mug and sets it on the drying rack. He has- now, they have- a dishwasher, but she likes washing them by hand.

She's wearing his socks and his t-shirt and he wonders when he became the type of man that liked that sort of thing. It makes him curious how just the sight of her in his clothes can feel like he's high, not on Dilaudid but on something far more intoxicating and addicting.

"Are you going to help me, or just stare?" She asks him from the sink, not turning around yet.

The air feels charged when he enters the room and she can always tell when he's there. He's not overly energetic or brimming with power like Penelope or Morgan but he has something about him that calls to her body, that tingles at her back and whispers along her hairline that alerts her to his presence.

Sometimes she wants to ask him if it's the same with her, and if he can tell when she comes into a room, but he's much more perceptive than she'll ever be and she doesn't need him to vocalize the answer for her to know that yes, yes he can always tell when she comes in.

He takes four long strides and grabs the now dry plates off the rack.

They work in comfortable silence to put away the dishes and drain the sink and clean the counters and do everything necessary to keep a clean kitchen, mostly because he has a pet-peeve about dirty living spaces and she likes the steady rhythm of cleaning and the nice act of completing something together.

When they finish she leads him back into the living room, past the stack of heavy green and red fraying books stacked around the arm chair with small pieces of paper neatly stacked next to them. He has a small bedroom office adjacent to the living room but he doesn't like being in there when she normally spends her free time reading in the living-room so he's half-turned the space into an office just to be next to her when he finishes his work at home.

She curls into his side on the couch, draping his arms over her and entwining their legs.

"What are you thinking of?" He asks, pressing his lips to the back of her neck. A line of tension runs through her and he can feel the stress on her shoulders and in the tightness of her eyes.

"I'm thinking of you." She doesn't want to alarm him but sometimes she's so scared, so terrified that every time she sees him leave through the door in the morning it'll be the last time she sees him go. That to know he was shot at just three days in a state on the other side of the country while she was completely oblivious to the situation, is like drowning and being on fire at the same time and the fear in her is like a beast that cannot be contained.

"Then why are you so worried?"

They've been together for a long time, long enough for him to feel comfortable tracing patterns along her thigh without permission and to share one bed every night and to think of a future where there's the two of them. He knows the statistics of marriage and thinks the concept is neigh on ridiculous and antiquated but what they have feels deeper than that and he doesn't need the piece of paper to prove anything because he loves her and she loves him and even though he's still working out how that happened he's content for the first time in his life to not have the answer because the result is the same.

They're in love.

"It's little fears, love." She sighs. But they're not little fears, they're monsters that keep her up at night and twist at her guts whenever he sends her a message saying he's about to land in whatever place they send him to.

But even the most perceptive person can't read minds and he accepts her answer and knows not to push her because even though he loves her and she loves him and they have a connection that neither can explain he's still trying to figure pieces of her out.

"Will you tell me what you're thinking about?" She asks him back.

"I'm thinking of you." He mirrors her early answer and smiles into her neck.

He's fascinated with every part of her body, but the curve of her neck and the small freckle half-hidden in her hairline, just behind her right ear is one of his favorite parts. There's something so graceful about the lines of her body, the slope of her neck, something so powerful about that steady beat he feels when his fingers brush her pulse point.

If he wasn't a practical man who enjoyed beauty and could resist his more animal-like urges he might be tempted to leave a mark on it. But he wasn't the type of man who needed to leave a hickey on a woman to claim her. He had her heart, he knew that. But, he could at least now, finally, see the appeal of such an act. She would also never forgive him for leaving a hickey when she had an important meeting the next day.

"What about me?" She says, rolling over in his arms to peer up into his eyes.

He presses their foreheads together and he trails his fingers higher up her thigh and under his night shirt, surprisingly finding nothing to block his fingers from teasing higher.

Her eyes go wide and then they shut and she tilts her head back, the strain of worry becoming the mask of pleasure.

"How much I miss you whenever I'm away." He tells her honestly. Because while he misses her body, he misses the small touches and the soft skin and the sometimes rough love, he always just misses her.

"I miss you too." She kisses his chin, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the lids of his eyes and the soft spot beneath his ear and holds on tight to his back when his fingers finally trace their way to some place that makes her forget how worried, how absolutely terrified she is when he's at work, and instead she thinks of nothing at all but that moment.

And it's enough.

For now.


	5. December 2014

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

* * *

December

2014.

There are big moments in life, the ones that people capture in pictures and hang on walls or send to relatives to share. Big moments that come after long periods of anticipation and months of work- moments to celebrate with friends with family, with loved ones. Graduation and first words, weddings and births and every milestone between the two.

Moments that are so good, so happy they turn into memories that play on loops. The first time he tells you he loves you. The first time you hold your baby sister. Moments, now memories, that you hold close and bring you light when life is a little dark.

Then there are these, the little moments.

They happen so quickly, like in the snatches between one breath and the next, or the fleeting space between dreaming and waking.

She cherishes these moments.

She cherishes _this_ moment, especially.

Little flakes of snow stuck melting on his lips and caught in the tips of his eye lashes, nose tinted pink with cold and cheeks flushed. He looks like every boy who ever went to bed dreaming of snow and woke up to build a snowman.

She's spinning slowly under the falling snowflakes and the blanket of thick blue-white clouds heavy with ice. She sticks her tongue out to catch them but the warmth of her breath melts them before they can land.

The ground is an endless blank canvas of snow, the air the soft color of blue and he wonders when he became a poet to think in colors instead of concrete shapes.

His mind is spinning with each turn he watches her make and the world tumbles with it.

Like laundry in a dryer.

Like a dice on a table.

Like his heart.

This is how he thinks now, in metaphors and comparisons that never quite achieve the feelings that flow so strongly through him they pulse like their own little heart beats.

He thinks about Dilaudid. He thinks about his struggles with recovery and the never ending images of dead body after dead body and the ever growing mountains of missing persons reports and cold cases and then he thinks about her, about this woman who spins under a sky whispering with snow.

"I've missed this," she tells him, stopping her slow spinning. "It feels like we're trapped in a snow globe."

Her head is a little dizzy and her toes are cold even in her thick winter boots but her heart is full and there's no hope of stopping the smile the blooms on her face, that seeps into her eyes and steals away the breath in her lungs.

This is happiness.

There is no worry here, in the snowy landscape of a deserted park at twilight.

All the normal weariness of a long day winds itself out of her body and she holds the feeling like paper thin glass. She won't let this moment break.

"How do you do it?" He asks her.

She lifts a brow, not understanding what exactly he's asking. In their months of being together, in the years of knowing him, in the weeks of waking up every day to his face, his hands, his eyes on her, he's asked her hundreds of questions. Questions about her family, about her life before him, about everything she's ever dreamed of or wanted for, about everything and nothing at all. Sometimes she knows the answers, sometimes she doesn't.

"Do what?" She smiles, if possible, wider. "Spin? It's quite easy Dr. Reid. Shall I teach you?"

She teases him, always playfully, with his title.

When she taught him how to drive stick shift- "Do you need me to teach you Dr. Reid?", when she realized he didn't know how to swim- "Doggy paddling is not swimming, Dr. Reid."

He doesn't tell what a thrill it is when she says things like that. How he likes it when she teaches him something new, how he gets at least the littlest bit turned on when she uses his title.

The light fall is now a steady flurry and they nestle into her hair and dampen her locks. She looks like a snow angel to him.

"How are you so..." he has a million words to pick from but none of them seem quite right.

"Happy?" She fills in.

"Always."

"You're safe, you're alive. You're with me. We're together and the world has turned into a winter wonderland overnight." She says plainly, obviously, simply. "Of course I'm happy."

She's the most complex puzzle he's ever attempted to solve. She's as constant as the North Star.

"Everyday with you... and still I find myself surprised." He says it so lovingly that she wants to burst into laughter and wipe her eyes. How can a love like this exist?

"I'll never get tired of it," he tells her, moving closer. Three feet away. "I'll never feel any differently than this." Two feet.

It isn't the scientist in him that thinks this, but the man. He knows that in life the only thing constant is death and that feelings and emotions are subjected to the myriad of whims and impossibility that always breed change.

But he's run through every possible scenario and he can't find a single one that would ever change how he would feel about her, about this woman. A woman who spins in the snow and laughs at jokes no other person can understand, not always because she herself understands them, but because he says them and her laugh will always bring him joy.

Mere inches separate them.

It's still too far.

He reaches out and wraps his arms around her, snow drifting off their coats like feathers from wings.

She wants to slow this moment down, to take it all in, every detail.

It's this moment.

Rewind. Play. Repeat.

"I promise you." He tells her softly, slowly, a whispered vow in a beautiful storm of snow.

She wants to tell him not to make promises he can't keep. She wants to beg him to repeat it.

"It'll always be like this- me, and you. Us. This." He's breathing fast and hard and he's torn between laughing and crying and just being silent because like her, he needs this moment too.

She closes her eyes, tightens her hold on his arms, breathes in the warmth of his skin and the frost clinging to his jacket.

She collects moments like precious shells on a beach, holding them tenderly in her hand and tracing and retracing the beauty of each individual piece. She plucks this moment from the air, like an apple on a tree. She holds it close to her heart.

"I love you,-"

"Shhhh." She replaces his words with her mouth.

She can't break this moment.

All she can do is enjoy it.


	6. July 2015

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

* * *

July

2015.

July comes with a sudden burst of heat and humidity that turns the Virginia sky hazy in the afternoon and blooms magnificently with red and orange at sunset.

The days have rolled into weeks that pass in a constant state of anger always brimming under the surface, coaxed to always almost boiling under the skin.

He's known anger before.

He felt it first when he realized his father was never coming back, that he was always going to be just a little different, that his mom was never going to get any better.

But that's a cold anger now, a rock of ice that's formed deep within him, etched into the every fabric of him. He grew around that anger, developed in-spite of it.

He felt it eight years ago after being left to struggle with an all-consuming addiction by the hands of Tobias Hankel. That was a special type of anger- it called itself a different name.

Fury.

Furious with fate, with the ill notion of luck and destiny that he couldn't quite come to grips with.

Was it as simple as bad luck?

But even that fury has simmered, cooled into self-pity, tempered into grief and self-loathing and rested in acceptance.

This is another beast.

Rage.

Dr. Spencer Reid is a man who now knows rage.

When he ripped open their- _his-_ apartment, when he stormed like a winter tempest and upset every last thing he could get his hands on. Broken mirrors and overturned chairs and matching mugs smashed into porcelain paste. Expensive sheets tossed into the trash along with matching pillow cases.

He cleaned up the mess methodically, mechanically. Detached in a way that would have surprised him, had he been able to feel anything else, anything but that beast of rage.

It's a never-ending pulse that throbs beneath his skin and leaks out his pores, like smoke vapors in heat.

He's always felt things differently, more subdued than most, rooted in logic. More emotional than most, neurons ferrying and firing faster in the limbic system.

He looks at the problem, takes note of cause and effect. Rationalizes.

He feels so deeply he wants his mind to shut off.

Perhaps this is just a sign to something, something far more dangerous than overwhelming emotion. Perhaps this is a precursor to the same afflictions as his mother.

Logic. Madness.

He holds the line between the two, wraps it around himself and prays it won't break; that he won't let it go.

Sometimes he thinks he never really had a good grip.

"Where is your head, kid?" Morgan interrupts.

It doesn't break his train of thought, but it pushes it into the background, covers it with a different memory.

 _"_ _Where is your head?" She asked him, fingers tangled into his too long hair. "Where are you, Spencer?"_

 _Murmurs across skin, lips trailing._

 _"_ _I can't find you in there."_

 _He's fighting to be there, fighting to come back from the case with the little boy and the now-broken family and the man who got away._

 _He's normally good at compartmentalizing, but not this time._

 _This time he is lost in mourning and frustration and a sadness that is hungry and insatiable._

 _She's naked and wrapped around him, holding his face between her hands and kissing away tears that leak from his eyes._

 _"_ _Will you come back to me?" She's searching for him as he stays locked inside his head, an endless circle he wants to break._

 _Eventually the tears dry up and he can put it away, let it rest and be what it is- one more family that he will never forget, one more life that he couldn't save, but one more reason for him to get up the next morning and do it all over again._

 _He sheds the sadness like a coat in the heat of summer and hangs it up. He will wear it later, but it will not own him today, not this moment._

 _"_ _There you are," she smiles. "I found you."_

 _And then there are no more words because his mouth is moving over hers and her fingers are taking off the rest of his clothes and everything else is small, insignificant next to this. Him. Her. Together._

 _It's not love that they make but it's more raw and a little violent._

 _And when he's inside of her-_

"Spence- seriously. What's going on in there?"

They're in the bull pin, lights flickering off as his co-workers, his friends, all pack up to finally go home.

Six days in San Diego and now they're back, weary and tired and determined to finish the paperwork. That damned, awful, paperwork.

"We saved the girl this time, we got the bad guy. We won." Morgan says in that calm manner of his, in the assuring lull from a man who does not falter, who does not break. Confident. Self-assured. We won.

Sometimes, at night, when his mind spins circles and his body can't relax and the doubt cripples him and breaks his back, chains him to the floor and wraps around his wrists, he lets himself pretend he's Derek Morgan.

"This time, man. Think about that. This time." He presses a finger onto his desk, like making a point. Because with Derek Morgan words are never enough, only actions, only reactions.

Cause and effect.

They won. One less burden. One less death to carry.

"I see you, kid."

Kid. Man. Boy-wonder. Genius. Spencer Reid.

Which one is he tonight? Kid, or man.

"I see how you're not sleeping, you're not talking. You can't do this, not anymore. We let you grieve, we let you keep it in and we watched you suffer and now it's time."

He wants to draw Spencer out, to release some of that rage he can always sense prowling.

Two months, almost three, enough was enough.

"She's gone, when are you going to deal with that?"

 _Never_ , he thinks, _tomorrow,_ he prays.

"She left you. Things got tough and she left."

And suddenly he's not sitting anymore. He's standing so quickly he knocks over his cup of pens and pencils and they drop to the floor, rolling erratically in all different directions.

"Excuse me, Morgan. But you don't know what you're talking about."

He pushes past his friend- past the words that beat into his head.

 _things got tough and she left._

Is that how they see it?

They were wrong, so hideously misinformed. But how would they know when he can't even make sense of it himself.

 _things got tough and she left._

"Hey-hey, wait up. Look, I shouldn't have said it like that. But come on man, talk to me. Or at least talk to someone. Call Penelope. She's losing her mind over this."

Derek is trailing behind him, running a hand across his shaved head. He knows what that means, that his friend is stressed and uncomfortable and the nice thing would be to accept his apology and wave it away.

Part of him wants to.

The other part feels like violence.

"You- you don't know what happened."

"Then tell me. Explain it to me."

His eyes look upward, at the white ceiling tiles and the too bright incandescent lights. This isn't where he wants to discuss her, not in the harsh light of the hallways in Quantico.

He has a choice. This is another one of those moments.

Cause and effect.

Let her go, at least let some of it go, some of that rage and pain and misery.

Talk to someone who may not get it, but who will try their very best to understand, to be supportive and to listen. Let someone else hold the weight of his anger. Share the pieces of him that can't seem to fit right.

 _things got tough and she left_

Explain that it was more. More than they think.

"I wouldn't know how."

And with that he's down the hallway and out the door.

He lets the rage build.


	7. March 2015

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

A/n: When inspiration hits all I can do it write.

* * *

March

2015

"Sir, you can't go through there."

He isn't listening to her.

"That's a restricted area."

Two sets of doors bar his entry, red tape reflecting off the ground. He's not allowed past the tape, no one is. These are precautions set in place to keep people safe. To keep everyone safe. So people can do their jobs without fear, without distraction. These people need to do their jobs without distraction.

The red tape is a warning to keep him out.

Any other day, for any other reason, they might have been warning enough.

Not today, not now.

He steps over it without a second thought, throwing his body towards the double doors. He would run through the fires of hell, if such a place existed.

The fear of hell itself would not keep him out. Nothing could.

"Where is she?" He wants to yell, to scream. He whispers instead. Even that noise sounds like gun-shots in his head. _Boom. Boom._

It takes something from him, then. That sound. _Boom._ He's fracturing, like glass under steady pressure of weight. Spider webs that fracture him.

He catches his reflection in a glossy window overlooking a parking lot.

There's blood on his hands, his clothes, his face. He looks like a monster.

He's taken aback by the sight of himself.

"Sir, I'm sorry but you really can't be in here." An elder woman with tightly pulled back grey hair and scrubs with smiling kittens on them, is pushing at him, trying to herd him down the corridor.

He wants to fight back, to push the stranger off of him. But she's his mother's age and he can't find it in him to throw her off him, he doesn't want to find it in himself to do that, not with all this blood on his hands.

He feints left, moves right and he's taking down the hall again, looking into rooms and calling out her name. He just needs to see her, to make sure. He has to at least see her.

"Spencer, stop." Hotch is suddenly yelling, grabbing him from behind and pulling him. He has twenty pounds at least on the kid and he knows how to take someone down.

One hand on the collar of his shirt, the other wrapped around his waist, Hotch begins the quick work of dragging him back into the waiting room.

"Get a hold of yourself. You're not helping her at all by acting like this." He growls, gripping tighter than necessary. He needs a dose of pain, a shot of something to bring him back to sanity. He can't lose his mind like this. Not here, not now.

He knows the fear the young man is going through, felt it himself when Haley was on the phone with him, when he couldn't save her. But this isn't the way. He needs the kid to be calm. He needs himself to be calm.

He blames himself. Spencer blames himself.

How could this happen?

"How does this help her? Think about that." Hotch is a silent storm of power as he pushes him into a large wooden chair covered in stiff, cushions a muted blue color. They smell like cheap cleaning products. He feels nauseated.

He can't keep still. He can't move.

He takes a breath. One. Two. Three.

Sixteen people in the hospital room.

Five sets of families sitting in tight circles, eyes red from crying or exhaustion.

A custodian is mopping in front of the ladies bathrooms. The smell of more cheap cleaning products.

He hears Penelope crashing down the hall, one shoe in her hand, bumblebee clips in disarray around her now violently orange hair. Her makeup runs in thick trails down her face and she's spluttering.

"Wh-where is she?" Penelope begs, her high and wavering. She's been crying non-stop.

"Baby girl, why don't I go see if I can find out." Derek stalks behind her, a large pink, almost translucent bag on his shoulder. He must have picked it up when Penelope dropped it.

He looks ridiculous with two visible guns strapped on him and a bullet proof vest with the words "FBI" stamped across the front and an oversized woman's hand bag swaying on his arm.

"Spencer- Spencer, she'll be okay." Penelope chants, she's mumbling about how the doctors are the very best in the country and how there's no reason to be afraid but it's her, and of course she'll make it. She has to.

"Hotch-" Spencer croaks, his voice sandy. He's scared.

He's never been so scared in his entire life. Not when Tobias had him roped to a chair. Not when he thought he was losing his mind from the impossible pain of never-ending migraines.

He thinks of Maeve. He used to think about her all the time, a constant pressure point in his skull. He thinks about her again now, as he sometimes did the past couple years, with less and less frequency. Of loving her, of losing her. Of watching her die. Her beautiful head splattered about the floor. It's hard to lose something you never had.

He loved her, once. He'd been able to move on, painfully. Slowly. Achingly. Stitch himself back together, breathe life back into frozen lungs. He learned how to laugh again, how to smile.

And then he met _her_ and-

He wouldn't be able to do it again, not this time. Not with her.

This time it wasn't half-imagined futures and always hidden hopes, but concrete lives lived together, built from a love that could not be undone by time.

This moment. This life. This love.

She carries with her his future. She carries everything.

"It'll be okay," Hotch tells him, eyes like steel. They dare him to contradict.

He swallows. It has to be okay.

Cause and effect.

 _"How can a person miss someone so much after only a few hours?" She asks him, smiling at him from his desk. She's always smiling at him. Her mouth is perfect for it. She was born to smile, to share it with those lucky enough to see it. She had so many ways to smile, with a secret in her lips or with the soft glow in her eyes._

 _"It has a lot to do with the varying neurobiological reactions o_ _f-"_

 _and she's smiling still, wider, ever more at his brain. He's so classically Dr. Spencer Reid with his mussed hair and neat glasses and colorful socks, knees jiggling with unused energy._

 _He tells her the chemistry of falling in love._

 _She tells him it's fate._

 _He thinks that now he has to believe in it. Science can only give him a partial answer to this riddle. Them._

 _Penelope spots them and comes marching down the staircase, digging around in her massive bag._

 _"Lovebirds, I have something for you!" She grins._

 _"Matching couples gift," JJ mouths behind her back, following her down the stairs._

 _"Look how cute these are!" Penelope exclaims, stumbling into Derek on her way to their desk. She's so caught up in her present between the two she lost track of her movement._

 _Spencer wants to hide at all the attention they get, at the cooing noises Derek teases them with and the not- so subtle winks from Kate and always the quick flash of surprise and respect Rossi gives him from having_ this _woman be her. How could someone as beautiful as her- as quick and talented and-_

 _It doesn't make sense to anyone. Not even to him._

 _"Out of everyone in the whole, wide world... I fall in love with you, and you with me. What does that say about fate?" She asks. She's already turning to see what Penelope has in her hands, mouth open to express her thanks and to engage in conversation with his co-workers. Friends. Family._

 _Her eyes are shinning, her hair swaying as she nods to whatever Penelope is saying._

 _He's about to respond, to pull her eyes back to him, just so he can savor them for a moment more, about to say something clever about fate and its fickle nature when a blast goes off._

 _He's stunned._

 _One. two. three._

 _Time speeds up. Blood on his face, dripping into his mouth, running into his eyes._

 _Time rewinds._

 _Derek pushing Penelope to the floor. JJ diving behind a desk, pulling her gun out, screaming at him to get down._

 _Time plays._

 _She's looking at him, eyes wide. Her mouth, her smiling mouth is turned down at the corners. Her brows raise in surprise, confusion- is that shock?_

 _She's not moving. But he isn't either._

 _He's in his chair, blood trailing down his face, under his chin, dripping onto his chest._

 _Her shirt is a mess in the same._

 _Her hands flutter to her stomach._

 _She presses once, twice, gingerly. There's blood everywhere._

 _Time speeds up again._

 _Eyes closed, body limp._

 _How'd she get on the ground?_

 _Someone is screaming, moaning a long and high-pitched wail. He needs to screaming and crying to stop because she can't hear him shout her name over it and she's not waking up and he needs her to open her eyes._

 _It's him. He's screaming._

 _He can't stop._

 _Not again- not again- not again-_

 _His hands are pressed into her stomach, please god where is the ambulance._

 _Stop the bleeding and she'll be fine. They've all been shot before- he's been shot before. She'll be okay._

 _Cause and effect._

 _Stop the bleeding and she'll be fine._

 _"Get down on the ground-" Hotch is barking from somewhere behind him, and the sound of skin hitting skin echoes around the room with his screams._

 _"JJ, read him his-"_

 _"Spencer, help is on the-"_

 _"Penelope breathe-"_

 _"Rossi grab the damn gun-"_

 _"Who was he shooting at-"_

 _"Oh my god there's so much blood-"_

 _"Is she still breathing, she looks-"_

 _"How did he get a gun up here, does anyone know wha-"_

 _"Sir- keep pressure on her wounds, that's right. Now move your hands when I say, ready? One. two-"_

It's hours before someone comes out to speak to them. Before they have a scrap of information. Before they have a clue to if she's even alive.

His body leaves bloody marks on the blue cushion.

At some point Rossi left and brought back coffee and food.

He can touch neither.

His mind is a mess.

Cause and effect.

Probabilities. Scenarios. His mind runs them all. The safest place in the entire world, his safest place, breached. Flayed open and slaughtered. If he couldn't protect her inside a heavily fortified FBI headquarters where could he keep her safe? Wasn't it suppose to be him? H

What are the chances? The statistics. Two bullets, one gun, one shooter, five people in the bull pen. 23.6% chance of a bullet hitting her, 14% chance of being hit twice.

Why was she there?

 _"I never get to see you at work. To see how you are. The Federal Agent, Dr. Spencer Reid. You come see me all the time."_

 _"It's really very ordinary, very pedestrian. I have a desk and a chair and I do paperwork and I even have a little trash can and sometimes I have to shred something, so we have a shredder next to the copy machine."_

 _"Sounds fascinating._ _When should I swing by?"_

 _"You can come in with me, we'll have breakfast and-"_

 _She wrinkles her nose at him._

 _"Of course, lunch would be a better time to come. I normally get thirty minutes to an hour, I can give you the tour."_

 _"How about Friday?"_

 _"I'll have to scan two copies of ID to get you security clearance and a visitor's badge."_

 _"Sounds secure... and secretive... and sexy." She lifts her brows in suggestion._

 _He knows that look in her eyes and closes the large volume he'd been trying to read. He grabs her quickly around the waist and -_

What are the odds?

Everyday he does the calculations to his life, to his friends lives, even wearing vests and following protocols and being well trained- 69.89%- 87.88% it always varies depending.

Impossibility, improbabilities- fate.

And then, finally.

"Dr. Reid?" He's a tired looking man with silver streaks in his well trimmed goatee and the faint lines of age casing his hooded eyes. He wear glasses perched on his nose and his hands are still warm from being scrubbed meticulously after surgery.

His name is Roland Mchale and he'd done his very best.

"Can we talk for a moment, privately?" He's missed his dinner reservations with his second wife for the third time in as many days and he's so exhausted he can't think about driving home, he'll probably just sleep wherever he can find a cot, like he hasn't done in years. He likes sharing the good news with the families, but even losing a patient isn't as hard as telling the ones that loved them most.

Despair settles into Spencer's bones, turning him to ice. His world is burning, his world is freezing.

Penelope stifles a sob and Hotch flinches when he catches Spencer's gaze.

He follows the man over to a corner of the waiting room, next to a plastic tree with little lights nestled into partially wiped away dust.

"Your wife made it through the surgery, she's currently in recovery in the ICU."

He's so filled with intense relief he doesn't think to correct the man who saved the love of his life. What is the term wife, compared to that. A future promise, a future- one that could happen. One that remains in the endless possibilities. Alive. Future. Alive.

"Unfortunately, the way position of the bullets in her abdomen caused irrevocable damage to the fetus and your wife had a miscarriage on the table, I'm sorry for your loss."

The plastic plant is holding him up, fake green leaves streaked with crusty red-brown blood. Her blood. Their child's blood.

Somehow he gets back to the chair.

Somehow Rossi gets him to take a shower.

Somewhere in between he registers what that means.

His child is gone. The possibility of his child is gone.

Cause and effect.

Stop the bleeding and she'll be fine.

He knuckles are raw from pounding against the expensive tiles of Rossi's luxurious Italian shower. He voice cracks at the slightest whisper and it's good the mirrors are so steamed from his scalding shower because he can't see the complete haunting in his eyes.

He's lost his baby.

He hasn't lost her.


	8. April 2015

Disclaimer: I don't own.

A/n: I definitely suffer from writers block.

* * *

April

2015

"I wanted to make this work."

She wants to punch something, scream at how ridiculous that sounds, how completely cliche and melodramatic. She wants to throw the little cat coffee mug he gave her at his thick skull and knock off his glasses and scream profanities. She wants to shred every memory of every moment in this apartment, to carve out that hideous feeling of guilt and absolute despair.

"Do you want to try to eat?"

He didn't hear her. He hasn't heard her. No one has.

How can no one see the giant tear in her? Unraveling her body, pulling her in two. Why hasn't anyone offered to sew her back together, stitch her so finally she can be a whole person again?

He's looking at her but he's not seeing her and she knows that this is one more piece of her being torn off, one more part of her she'll spend the rest of her life trying to find. He helped make the heart of a tiny being that _died_ inside of her. How can he get up and put on a tie and make them a pot of coffee, kiss her head and walk out of the door.

She's still bleeding, bright little red spots that remind her she no longer has a life within her. She's just one person again, broken and torn and now empty.

He smiles at her in the new way he's taken to smiling, like any real trace of emotion will make her break into a trillion fragments. He's tying his shoes.

"Please, please just stay." She's begging him. She knows it's selfish, irresponsible and completely wrong to ask him. He's already taken more than a week off of work to be with her, to sit besides her in the hospital room, to wash her hair and force something, _anything_ , edible into her.

He doesn't hear her. Or he's not listening. Or he can't hear her but isn't listening anyways. Regardless-

"I've made you some eggs, you really need to get something in you." He's in the kitchen, moving things around, picking items and putting them down. He's always doing that- moving, constantly. If he stops he might never start again, so he forces himself to keep moving. His fingers dance nervously on the counter.

The timer on the toaster oven is ticking down and she feels herself starting to break again- she can hear the timer eating away all of her remaining time- it's coming.

It's been coming.

"I wanted to make this work." She doesn't know if she's crying, honestly can't feel very much of herself at the moment. She's all wrapped up in the Christmas blanket she bought him months ago, curled into the fetal position. Her anger comes at her in a tidal wave but exhaustion has sucked her dry and she feels like at any minute she might just fade away.

"I'm going into work, I'll call you when I get there and to check on you at lunch."

He's back in the living room, presses a kiss on her forehead.

Something shifts- one small moment- and she can feel his weight settle into the couch.

This is it. He's listening now.

She finds it in herself to look up, to raise her head and to meet his eyes. He flinches.

He sees her, the anger that stirs in her, sees the pain and the guilt and he's completely lost. How can he possibly help her when he's drowning with her? He feels that too. All the guilt that pressing into him, like the weight of the ocean suffocating him.

"St-" She begins

"I'll be back soon, love."

He's off the couch in the next second and moving around, jiggling his keys and shoving paper into his leather book bag. He looks at her quickly, giving her the same smile from before.

And then he's gone.

"I need you to talk to me," She tells him, but he's gone. "I'm not okay."

* * *

 _"Hey- It's me. I made it safely. We're going over the new security measures so that- so- so nothing ever... I, anyways I made it safely. Please try to eat the breakfast I made you. I know it's hard- I just- you need to eat, okay? Okay. I'll, uh, I'll see you when I get home... I love you. I love you."_

 _"Hey, just checking in. I shouldn't be here late tonight. I'll be home in just a bit. Just calling to check in. I'm going to pick up dinner on the way home, any requests? Well, I'll be there as soon as I can be. I love you, okay? I- I'll see you in a bit."_

 _"I'm on my way home- I wish you had called me back, but I get it. I get it. I just- I get it. I'll be there soon."_


	9. March 4th 2015

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

* * *

March 4th

2015

There's a little flutter in her belly. It's like the feeling of little wings or bubbles popping inside of her. It's so obvious to her now she starts to laugh- head tilted back, full body shaking laugh.

It wakes Spencer up immediately. He's already halfway up in bed and rolls on top of her- trying to shield her from the door.

Even half-conscious his brain is on high alert, assessing and analyzing scenarios- muscles wound tight in anticipation.

"You're laughing." He half mumbles it, already his body beginning to relax. He drops a quick kiss to her lips rolls back onto his side of the bed.

"Were you trying to protect me from laughing?" It makes her laugh even harder, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

His head is now under a pillow and he's muttering to himself.

She catches 'intruder', and 'protect' before she can finally get herself together.

"That was very- incredibly, amazingly- sweet." And she slides closer to him, trailing her fingers across the broad expanse of his shoulders. He's taken to wearing only pajama pants to bed, something she would never had expected of him. She starts to pepper soft kisses along his back and then nips lightly on one shoulder.

"You definitely would have saved my life, I can tell." She smiles into his skin and can hear the rumbling of laughter in his chest.

He pulls his head up from underneath the pillow and shoots her a barely noticeable eye roll over his shoulder. It's late, but the moon is bright and her eyes have adjusted enough to make him out.

"So what was so funny that you couldn't hold back your laughter until maybe oh," he looks quickly at the alarm clock by their bed, "not 2:35 in the morning?"

She wiggles a little closer to him and he takes his cue to wrap her up in his arms.

She's all smiles and anticipation and soft words-

"I feel him."

"And who would that be?" He muses. It's the most idiotic moment of his life, he realizes, as the connection makes. The baby. Their baby. And then-

"It's a boy?"

And suddenly his heart is so incredibly full that his chest feels like a balloon about to pop- like a volcano erupting.

"Maybe. No. But yes, I think so? Is that crazy? I just- I know it, and I can feel him- or I guess maybe her, but really I think it's him." She's so happy, so painfully happy.

"You can... you can really feel him?" And he's rolling back on top of her, careful to keep his entire weight off of her. She feels him lift the hem of her nightie up, bunching it under her breasts.

"He's not kicking- not yet- but I know it's him. I can feel it."

He's staring at her belly, at the little curve to it, the roundness that makes him almost lose his breath. That's their child inside of her, a small part of him growing in her.

He bends down and rests his head against her stomach.

There's nothing to feel yet, not for him, but it's enough knowing that she can.

"Hello little one," he whisper to his growing child, "I can't wait to meet you."

And then she can't help herself. She's so in love with this man, so ridiculously content with her life, she starts laughing again.

He doesn't ask her what's making her laugh because he gets it too. Absolutely nothing could compare to the feeling of utter happiness- of joy. There's only one way to express it.

He kisses up her body between laughs, nuzzles into the crook of her neck, all the while smiling.

"Thank you," he tells her, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

And then a stray thought crosses her mind and she's laughing for another reason.

"What would you have done if the 'intruder' was coming through the window?"

"I calculated the probability. There was an 18% chance coming from the balcony simply due to the-"

"You calculated the odds that quickly?" She's not sure why she's still so surprised by him.

"It's really very simple statistics informing proba-"

She cuts him off by kissing him. They only have a few more hours before they both need to be up and she'll be damned if she spends them calculating the odds of an intruder breaking in than making love to the father of her child.

"I can see where this is going." He breaks the kiss to pull her nightie up and over her head.

"I think there's a pretty good chance you're going to find yourself very, very lucky Mr. Reid." She grins at him.

"I'll take those odds."


	10. October 2013

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

* * *

October 2013

He's nervous.

It's not an unfamiliar emotion, but he's surprised nonetheless. Normally the nerves come _after._ After he realizes he should have been nervous- when it's too late and he's already done something- knocked over a chair or missed the subtle cue to laugh in a conversation. He doesn't always catch those moments, in all honesty he hardly _ever_ catches them, and that's when the nerves set in.

He's bouncing his left leg and feels the brief twinge of pain that action always brings. He was shot years ago and for anyone else the pain might be a distant memory, but he's never had the luxury of forgetting anything, not even painful things.

He checks his phone.

6:01

He was twenty-three minutes early.

She's one minute late.

It's ridiculous that he's there, he thinks. Foolish really. He doesn't know what he was thinking, wishes he could turn back the clock and stop him from suggesting this in the first place. He hadn't been planning on asking her, hadn't realized the words were coming out of his mouth until she was already responding, her eyebrows up and her smile bright. He saw that smile and-

His phone chimes.

His chest squeezes and his stomach turns and suddenly his mouth is dry. He forces himself to breath deeply and count to five before he checks his messages.

 _Traffic was bad, but i'll be there in two minutes! Sorry!_

Instant relief is quickly overshadowed be crippling anxiety. He's breathing deeply and trying to smooth down his hair, there's a thread unraveling on his sleeve and he didn't have enough time to shave this morning (not that it really makes a difference, it takes him days to grow the equivalent of a five o'clock shadow).

He wants to get a grip on himself, doesn't know where these sudden insecurities have come from, thought he had mostly dealt with them. One wouldn't be this nervous just meeting a friend for coffee, right? That's all they were doing- friends meeting up. He hadn't used the word date, had he?

He turns over their conversation in his mind.

 _"Of course I would run into you here, of all places." Her arms are loaded with books and she's struggling to fix the strap on her book bag. There's a smear of ink on her left cheek and he wonders what it would be like to run his fingers over it, wonders what it would be like if touching someone else came as easy to him like it does to others- what would her cheek feel like? He's horrified at the sudden train of his thoughts, almost wants to apologize to her._

 _"I was almost beginning to think you were a ghost." She's genuinely happy to have run into him. She doesn't really understand it but every time she sees him something warm blooms in her chest and she wants to make him laugh, wants to hear his voice._

 _He was surprised to see her, does the math and realizes it's been four months since the last time. Her hair is longer and she looks a little sun-kissed, like she's gotten back from a vacation. He wonders if she has someone significant in her life and is almost shocked when the thought makes him feel a little sick. He's good at compartmentalizing and pushes those feelings aside to explore in depth later._

 _He says something in response that isn't clever but she laughs anyways._

 _And then she's saying goodbye and he can't help himself-_

 _"Would you want to meet up for coffee?" He doesn't know what his face must look like- a mixture of confusion and shock? "I- you- I mean you don't- well" but there's nothing really to say so he trails off._

 _"Yes, yes I would." And then she's writing down her phone number on the corner of napkin and he can't hardly believe what's happening._

The next two minutes pass and every time the door opens (six times in total) his heart leaps.

He sees her first through the window, chocolate hair catching in the wind and face half in her scarf. She's carrying a stuffed book bag again and a polka dot umbrella and she's smiling. Always.

She hovers outside the entrance for a few seconds and he sees her breathing in deeply.

Somehow it calms him.

He can't stop the smile that's eating at his face. He might miss most social cues but he knows she's just as nervous.

She looks for him when she enters, unwinding her scarf and scanning the room. Her hair is a mess of windswept curls and she wishes she had taken the time to change into something else. There's a coffee stain on her blouse from this morning and there's a noticeable run in the knee of her tights she hadn't realized until she was at work.

She's thinking about all the ways her appearance could be better when she sees him.

Shaggy hair and checkered shirt and silly tie.

She's halfway through her apology and he's shaking his head, hands up, trying to tell her that he hasn't been waiting long, "traffic is completely understandable, no please don't be sorry!"

He's fumbles out of his seat and pulls the opposite chair out for her.

She's smiling again and when she unbuttons her coat she can't be bothered to care about the coffee stain or the ripped tights.

"So," she begins, "save any lives today?"

No, he hadn't. But he'd spent hours at his desk trying to sort through the mountains of paperwork. He likes the paperwork usually, doesn't mind the desk work that Morgan hated vehemently.

"No, but I did create a new filing system for assessments that I think will really improve efficiency. I found that the general risk assessments all had multiple overlying keys, not including geographical distance, so I was able to write an algorithm to make that initial search process easier in our database."

"And here I was, thinking your job was boring."

She's teasing him.

And then everything after that is easy. Easy like floating in calm water, easy like the silence right before sleep.

At some point a waiter takes their orders-two coffees (black for her, four sugar packets for him) and two slices of pie (blackberry, never cherry).

Two refills, two more slices of pie and four hours later she thinks he's the most brilliant person she's ever met and he can't quite believe someone like her would ever willingly listen to someone like him ramble on about Kant's Critique of Pure Reason or the inconsistency that plagues him in Doctor Who but how it's still the only thing he'll watch when he's sick at home.

She's fascinated by his odd quirks- has been fascinated for months- and each new thing is like another puzzle piece in figuring him out. He's the most simple person in the most complicated way and she wants to learn everything she can about him, wants to ask him endless questions just to hear his thoughts.

She tells him about her day at work, about her love for photography, her secret habit of reading horoscopes (not that she _really_ believes in them) and her embarrassing first date with Robert Heindler in the tenth grade. She shows him pictures of the dogs at the humane society she volunteers at every Sunday, reveals that she's never broken a bone but she's had three concussions all from playing ultimate frisbee in college.

But he asks about her family and she tells him about the foster home she grew up in and the woman who took care of her in high school and how hard it was when she passed away three years ago.

She tries not to feel ashamed when she tells him what little she does about her childhood, but even though she's come a long way towards acceptance about things she can never change, she still hasn't managed to get over the hot sting of humiliation she feels admitting that no one ever wanted her, and she's never been one to successfully hide anything she feels.

She doesn't tell him that she cried almost every night for a year in middle school, doesn't tell him about the car accident or the reason behind the scar in her eyebrow, and she definitely doesn't tell him that she dreamed about him the first night they met.

He tells her about getting shot years ago, why he doesn't like shaking hands, confesses that his biggest fear in the world is letting down his team, alludes to a case that was emotionally hard for him that vaguely sounds like one she followed in the news years ago and breaks her heart to hear about. He tells her about his mom and what it's like to be a boy genius and still feel like a failure. He doesn't tell her about Dilaudid, he doesn't tell her he's been in recovery for four years now, or that he's only ever kissed three women in his entire life and he definitely doesn't tell her he's imagined what it would be like to kiss her.

He realizes that they've known each other for a year now but they never really knew each other- still don't really- but it's progress.

She realizes that there's so much more to him than a big brain and silly patterned ties. She wants to reach out and touch him but after their talk she knows it's not as simple as that for him, so she doesn't.

When they leave the little cafe they can't help but feel a little dismayed their evening has come to an end. If he was a little braver and could make sense of his feelings he would invite her back to his apartment to show her his collection of books and the telescope Rossi gave him for Christmas two years ago. If she were a little braver she would ask him to walk around until the night gave away to the sunrise.

But he never even thought to ask and she never even thought it a possibility.

She can't hug him goodbye without intruding on his space so she gives him the warmest smile she can, tries to show him how happy she is to just have sat and drank coffee with him, and puts it all into her smile.

When he sees it he wonders if he's ever been able to do something like that- to show your emotions so clearly with just one look.

He thinks he's never met someone more beautiful, yes, but also more genuine.

His return smile is wide and honest and more than a little shy.

When she turns to leave he realizes he doesn't know when he'll see her again.

"I- I'm going to this thing. Saturday. It's well- it's a lecture, really. It's supposed to be really fascinating, it's all about stenography… we could, well we could go if you-"

He's stuttering again and the tops of his ears are red so she takes pity on him and tells him the truth.

"I would love to."

"Really?" He's stunned again, and begins to ramble, "You don't have to go, but it really will be interesting, the Q&A is really where things get fascinating, some people have so many theoretical-"

"I would love to, really."

And then she's wishing him goodnight and they both leave.

When she goes to bed that night she thinks about how he looks when he's talking about the world around him, and she pictures his eyes one last time before she closes her own for bed.

He stays up for a little while yet, replaying every second of their entire conversation in his mind, his own little rewind button.

When he finally goes to bed he can't seem to shake the image of her smile out of him mind. He's never seen someone smile so much and he feels his own lips give an involuntary tug upwards. He guesses it must be contagious, but knows he has a pretty good reason to smile at the moment.


End file.
